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Uprising’s guest expert Rahul Mahajan, sociologist and news analyst and author of Full Spectrum Dominance: US Power in Iraq and Beyond, analyzes today’s news headlines:

FISA Court documents show that no telecommunications companies have challenged the government’s bulk surveillance of its customers despite available mechanisms to do so. A FISA Court declassified its decision-making over the surveillance of Americans via their phone records. In it is mentioned that no phone companies since Qwest Communications’ refusal to comply in 2006 under President Bush, have challenged the government’s requests to turn over data. Additionally, civil libertarians are alarmed at the court’s reasoning that Section 215 of the USA PATRIOT Act can be invoked to justify simply collecting massive amounts of metadata in anticipation of finding terrorism-related leads. Click here for a Guardian Newspaper article about the story.

In an interview on Telemundo yesterday, President Obama said definitively that he will not use his executive authority as President to halt deportations of undocumented immigrants and that it was just “not an option.” Despite his assertions that the majority of immigrants deported are criminals, it turns out that a majority are in fact either innocent, or guilty of low-level offenses like DUIs. Click here for a Washington Post report about the story.

In a major victory for labor, the Obama Administration’s Labor Department announced that home healthcare workers would finally be allowed to enjoy the benefits of minimum wage and overtime laws. Home healthcare workers are among a fast-growing sector of the workforce as more and more elderly and disabled Americans require one-on-one care. The vast majority of such workers are women. Click here for an Al Jazeera America article about the story.